Underscores (musician)

April Harper Grey (born April 21, 2000), known professionally as Underscores (stylized in lowercase), is an American musician.

She grew up listening to artists like Jack White, Beck, and Madonna, becoming interested in filmmaking and composing music at a young age.

Grey began releasing dubstep music on SoundCloud at the age of 13, eventually incorporating other genres.

April Harper Grey was born on April 21, 2000, in San Francisco, California, to a Filipina mother and a white father.

Before identifying as a trans woman, she attended an all-boys Catholic school for nine years, where she visited church three times a week.

However, she has stated that her parents did not raise her to be religious like them.

She has specified Madonna's Music (2000) as the first album she remembers listening to.

Grey became interested in composing music at the age of six.

As a child, she produced beat loops and burned them onto CDs using her father's computer.

She also experimented with GarageBand.

Wallsocket was inspired by artists such as Imogen Heap, Bruce Springsteen, and Sufjan Stevens, as well as country music, 2010s pop, and horror films.

Her style has been noted as diverse, playful, but precise, encompassing genres such as hyperpop, pop-punk, dubstep, indie pop, rock, and Midwest emo.

In the early 2010s, Grey discovered Skrillex and the dubstep genre and was attracted to its sound design possibilities, akin to "rocket science".

Spencer Kornhaber of The Atlantic wrote: "In high school, [she] became a jazz-band geek with a penchant for music theory".

She also listened to Midwest emo and math rock music during high school.

At the age of 13, Grey began releasing dubstep music as Underscores on SoundCloud.

As a child, Grey wrote short stories, created films using iMovie, and ran a YouTube channel with Let's Plays of the video game Minecraft (2011).

Growing up, Grey listened to artists like Jack White, Beck, Lucinda Williams, and Van Morrison, as well as pop stars like Madonna, Britney Spears, and Justin Timberlake.

For years, she released a stream of "one-offs", such as her 2015 single "Mild Season", but she eventually became bored of "using the same sounds" and began incorporating other influences.

After releasing three extended plays (EPs) from 2018 to 2020, she rose to prominence with her debut album Fishmonger in March 2021.

She released its companion EP and opened for 100 gecs on tour later that year.

Grey performed her first headlining tour in early 2022 and concluded the "Fishmonger era" with a pop song in early 2023.

She released her second album Wallsocket in September 2023 on the Mom + Pop record label.

It was promoted with four singles, an alternate reality game, and a tour of North America and Europe.

Grey's early influences include Skrillex and 100 gecs.

She released the jazz–EDM extended play (EP) Skin Purifying Treatment in 2018.

It was the first project she wrote lyrics for and she has cited it as where her style solidified.

Grey followed it with the EP We Never Got Strawberry Cake in 2019.

She designed its cover and uploaded it to DistroKid immediately after completion.

She has noted it as the project she is most proud of, explaining, "because I didn't give myself ample time to start resenting it".

In 2020, Grey released the EP Character Development!.

Grey released her debut album Fishmonger in March 2021.

It features appearances from 8485, Knapsack, and Maxwell Young, and was preceded by the promotional singles "Second Hand Embarrassment" and "Kinko's Field Trip 2006".

She recorded it at her parents' house amidst the COVID-19 pandemic.

Despite having no prior experience, she incorporated guitar into every track because she had "run out of production tricks" and did not like any piano voicings.

Fishmonger appeared on The Atlantic list of the 10 best albums of 2021 and The Line of Best Fit list of the 15 best hyperpop albums.

They complimented its combination of hyperpop with pop-punk, rock, and indie genres.

Fishmonger also drew the attention of high-profile musicians such as Glaive, Lido, and Travis Barker of Blink-182.

Upon release, Lido sent the album to Dorothy Caccavale of ATC Management, who eventually became Grey's manager alongside Jackson Perry.

In late 2021, Grey toured as an opening act for 100 gecs on the U.S. leg of their 10,000 gecs tour.